The walls of the dungeon were made of sandstone and were littered with bio-luminescent moss. The faint glow of the moss lit up the otherwise dark dungeon. The floor was cold and hard. While nothing had happened yet, Ivy was already growing antsy to get out of one of the places she had heard was extremely dangerous for so long. Secret had already started to walk ahead not seeming to be thinking of the dangers or at least not heading them. With nothing better to do, besides immediately ducking out of the cave, Ivy followed their lead, staying close behind. After not much walking the two of them soon made it to a fork in the road with no signs as to which direction Julia had went.
"So, do you think we should split up?" Secret asked turning to look at Ivy.
"No, we should stick together. Safety in numbers after all."
"Well okay... but it might take longer." With that Secret started to walk towards the right. Ivy felt a bit annoyed at not being asked her opinion about what direction to go in but didn't want to make a fuss about it and followed Secret in.
The hallway opened up into a large room with what looked like a set of stairs in the corner. There was also a Oran berry laying on the ground close to where Secret was, which they soon picked up.
"Hey, look at this Ivy!"
"That's an Oran berry, we should bring it with us in case we get hurt."
"So I take it that Oran berries heal then?"
"Yes, they do. Those stairs over there in the corner will lead us to the next floor of the dungeon." Secret than started to walk toward the stairs. "Hey! wait. We don't know where in this dungeon Julia is, for all we know she could be on this floor. We should stay and comb the area."
Secret groaned tipping their head back slightly. "Do we have to? I want to see what's at the end of this place."
"We shouldn't have to stay here longer than we have to, Secret. Remember, we are here for Julia."
"Right. Right. Julia... but if things go well here can we go back after we find her?"
Ivy immediately felt a pit of anxiety at the idea. Just because things went fine this time didn't mean they would go well again. Besides they had only just got here, it wasn't like they knew how this would go. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it Secret." But by Arc I hope we don't.
Time Skip!
They continued to search the first floor of the dungeon. Finding two more Oran berries, a Pecha berry, and 70 Poke in the process, Ivy explaining the new items to secret. Strangely, though, no monster illusions. While Ivy didn't exactly want to run into any monster illusions, the lack of them was causing her to become nervous. She almost wanted to run into one so she could stop waiting but also to hopefully gauge just how powerful this particular dungeon was so she could know whether it was actually possible to stick around any longer and live.
The whole time Secret seemed to be kind of carefree and got very excited about finding loot. Ivy had no doubt that if things went well for them this time Secret would definitely come back for more. If that happened Ivy wondered if she would join Secret or not just to try to stop them from doing anything too reckless.
"Ivy, when will we be done with this floor?"
"We should be done soon, I don't think there's many more rooms we need to check."
"What if we get lost?"
"I've been drawing a map."
"A map? I don't see any."
"I've been drawing a map with my brain."
Secret was quiet for a second before saying "You know, I don't think a brain map is very reliable."
It wasn't, Ivy knew that. However, it wasn't like she had anything better. She didn't exactly bring anything like paper to draw a map or chalk to make markings on the wall. If they had more preparation she would have brought her bag and some paper and pencils but she didn't exactly have time to go back to her home and grab them. Without a bag the two were stuck trying to carry all their items with various degrees of successes. The coins found a home in Secret's mane of fur around their neck. The berries, on the other hand, were being carried by Ivy. Good thing vine whip doesn't require free hands...
Up ahead Ivy saw what should be the last room on the floor. They both walked in and looked around for signs of Julia. There was no pink Pokemon in there but that didn't mean there would be zero clues if she had been. In the corner of the room, Ivy spotted it, an Oran berry but with a single bite in it as if whoever had eaten didn't have time to finish it and just left it there. Monster illusions didn't eat but, of course, real Pokemon did.
Suddenly, it clicked in Ivy's mind why there wasn't any monster illusions. They had all been defeated recently and the dungeon didn't have a chance to regenerate more yet. Julia, Ivy knew, was too weak to fight this much. While Julia could have eaten that Oran berry, her being there didn't account for the lack of Monster illusions. Someone else was in the cave with them. But who?